Amsterdam - Dutch Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin on Wednesday announced he would investigate allegations of anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred and violence during pro-Palestinian rallies held in the Netherlands in the past two weeks. Hirsch Ballin said he would ask police teams what exactly happened during the various pro-Palestinian rallies that took place in several cities. He would also look at whether the public prosecutor had taken appropriate action where the law was found to have been violated.
Ronny Naftaniel, director of the Centre for Information and Documentation about Israel (CIDI), has accused police of having been too passive during pro-Palestinian rallies and of failing to act against overt incitement to violence against Jews.
Last week, Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said "calling racist slogans against Jews during rallies in Rotterdam is intolerable."
Several hundred Jews and Christians convened for pro-Israel rallies in the Jewish Cultural Centre in Amsterdam last Wednesday and outside the Dutch parliament in The Hague two days later.
The Netherlands' predominantly Muslim migrant population, many of them teenagers, participated in multiple pro-Palestinian rallies held in Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht and other major Dutch cities.
In Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, protesters shouted the slogan "Hamas, Hamas, put the Jews to the gas."
Several of the pro-Palestinian rallies were held spontaneously, without the permission of authorities. The rallies coincided with similar demonstrations worldwide over Israel's military offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, media reports said prominent criminal law attorney Bram Moszkowicz filed a criminal complaint to the police against two legislators from the Socialist Party who participated in a pro- Palestinian rally in Amsterdam on January 3.
Legislators Harry van Bommel and Sadet Karabulut and, were filmed explicitly calling for "intifada" (uprising) against Israel while other protesters shouted the gas slogan against Jews.
Videos of the event were posted on YouTube.
Participants in that rally also carried posters of Muslim fundamentalist figures, among them leaders from the Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, the head of Hezbollah in Lebanon Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and the late Iranian ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Van Bommel was heavily criticized for not distancing himself publicly from the gas slogan.
He argued that he was "misunderstood" and had not call for violence, but merely for "peaceful resistance against the Israeli occupation". Van Bommel also said the use of the term "intifada" was "not wise".
But his subsequent announcement that he would attend the annual Auschwitz commemoration scheduled for January 25, resulted in a flood of angry reactions from elderly Jews planning to mark the event in in Amsterdam.
Jacques Grishaver, chairman of the Auschwitz Committee that organizes the public commemoration, said his office was flooded with e-mails and phone calls from furious Holocaust survivors and their children as well as concerned citizens.
"People were extremely angry that van Bommel "had the guts" to join a commemoration of the Jewish genocide only weeks after participating in a rally during which participants called for the death of the Jews by gas," Grishaver said on television.
His organization even received threats against the legislator, he said.
After talks with the Auschwitz Committee on Sunday, van Bommel told Grishaver he would not be present at the commemoration after all.
Speaking to reporters, the legislator later explained he wanted to avoid "diverting media attention" from the commemoration to himself.
On Monday, Dutch, Jewish and Muslim youths convened for a Shalom/Salaam/Peace ice-skating event in Amsterdam, an initiative by Jewish youths calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
